An air conditioner is capable of implementing heat exchange between refrigerant and indoor air via compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation of the refrigerant. The refrigerant exchanges heat with the indoor air in an indoor heat exchanger. The refrigerant is condensed via heat exchange with the indoor air during a heating operation of the air conditioner, but is evaporated via heat exchange with the indoor air during a cooling operation of the air conditioner.
The air, heated or cooled via heat exchange in the indoor heat exchanger, is returned to a room to cool or heat the room.
Meanwhile, an air conditioner that promotes human health using an anion or antibacterial filter has recently been developed. Moreover, a method using an electrostatic spray device incorporated in the air conditioner has recently been proposed to discharge particles that promote human health.
The electrostatic spray device is devised to split liquid into small droplets by electric force. Such electrostatic spraying has a characteristic to generate charged fine droplets that exhibit a monodispersed distribution in a cone-jet mode.
In one example, Korean Patent Laid Open Publication No. 10-2014-0003015 (hereinafter, referred to as the cited invention) discloses an electrostatic spray device.
In accordance with the cited invention, when the spray device is mounted to an air conditioner, for example, inside the air conditioner, variation in interior temperature occurs during operation of the air conditioner. At this time, a pneumatic pressure inside the spray device increases, causing leakage of, for example, an oil from the inside of the spray device. In addition, an electric field created in the spray device for electrostatic spraying is not stable, which makes it impossible to achieve uniform spraying.